Delaware Family Safely Escapes Violence In Libya To Return Home

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Protests continue in Libya as demonstrators call for Leader Moammar Gadhafi to step down. In spite of the violence, one Delaware woman shared her amazing journey from Libya to the United States.

“The feeling of trying to get out and you can’t do it, I’m sorry, it’s just nice to be back,” said Catherine Pandur as she struggled to talk to reporters at the Philadelphia International Airport.

Catherine says she is relieved to be back in the United States. She and her family moved to Libya nearly four years ago because of her husband’s job. He worked at Coca-Cola.

“It was a good life,” said Pandur. “The kids went to school there. They had so many friends it was a really nice life.”

Tuesday that peaceful and calm life she and her family were used to turned violent in an instant.

“Non-stop gunfire people, honking horns, utter chaos,” said Pandur.

“When were in the airport trying to get out, they carried a body through that was just covered in blood,” she described.

She and her two young sons were able to get a flight to Frankfurt, Germany and then Philadelphia. Before boarding the flight to Philadelphia, she says she got a call from her husband, who is now in Egypt.

“I just got the phone call before I left,” she cried. “He’s out now, he’s out now.”

In response to Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, the Obama administration is freezing all assets in the United States held by the Libyan government, Gadhafi and his four children. The U.S. has also shuttered it’s embassy in Tripoli.